Word is arguing with me that “theirselves*” is not a word, but the Scottish part of my brain is refusing to give it up. I have been using that word since I was knee high to a splinter, it makes sense in my head, but I know someone would bitch about it as a grammatical error or some such if I used it in Phangs.
Which is unfortunate, cause as it would turn out, I’ve used it. A lot.
*themselves just doesn’t have the same meaning? Don’t ask I don’t know. It’s likely a colloquial thing.
I get it, you want a possessive pronoun instead of an objective one?
YES, thank you I’ve been trying to pin it down and sitting here just saying the word over and over trying to figure out why it feels right.
There is a slight semantic difference! You’ll see people claim that ‘theirself’ is technically incorrect grammar but that’s prescriptivist talk. If there’s a hole in the lexicon someone will fill it 😉
I mean it’s already there, it exists in Scottish dialect. I just know I’ll likely get schtick for putting it in a book, or some pedant will pick up on it and leave a remark about it not being “proper English”, which no, it’s not. But I feel it should be. It fills a gap, as you say. And language ought to change with the times.
Huh. I’d never realised I used theirselves until this very moment. It’s a real word dang it!
Right?! It wasn’t until it got pointed out to me and I had to run stuff through Word to fix something that I was like “what do you mean that’s not a word, it is too a bloody word!”
I also only recently discovered that “outwith” isn’t a word outside of Scotland…that might have been one of your revelations too but I can’t remember. Either way, the rest of English is missing out.
It’s fucking what now?
But…but it’s such a good word… what do people say instead? Outside? Without? … but they don’t have the same inherent meaning.
Oh well. Fuckit.
Sorry Phangs readers, but you’re about to get a crash course in learning Scots dialect. Hold onto yer bunnets.
how would someone use ‘outwith’, what’s it mean?
“Outwith the norm” or “outwith his expectations”.
Which I suppose “outside” would work, but it feels janky on my tongue to say that. I’ve always used outwith when talking about like thingy-things like experiences or perceptions, while outside is reserved for real physical things like “you’ve parked outside the line” or “he’s outside the house”, though I dare day there’s some folk use “outwith” for those too.
Huh. Those two phrases make absolute sense to me, but I suspect not in the same way they make sense to you? Especially since I’m kinda expecting a space between “out” and “with”, and my brain is insisting that the lack of it doesn’t change the meaning (and yet, it probably does).
And if “outwith the norm” means that is is not within a range that is an expected set for whatever is being spoken of, I’d probably be using “out of the norm” myself. IF I’m picking up the definition of outwith in that context correctly.
“Outwith his expectations” … I think “not among his expectations” might be the way I’d phrase it? Or “not what he expected”? (I mean, “outside his expectations” might be a technically correct phrase, but to me it sounds clunky and off.)
Which is more words and more syllables, and might not actually quite hit the same context, since I’m not actually sure I’m picking up the context correctly (which to me is more me having a bad morning with figuring shit out because I got woken up early by noise that very nearly started my day with a meltdown than any lacking in your explaination).
And probably most of the time where you’d use outwith, I’m using an entirely different phrase, and trying to figure it out is all about me trying to figure out if I have the context clues right, ‘cause that helps being able to communicate. (And context clues in words are so much easier than some other context clues, dear fuck.)
Edit: Continued to read further in posts, and context was provided! And I did miss some context clues, and that’s ok, ‘cause I began from limited context. (Then kept looking to see if there were more, ‘cause of course I’m going to see if there’s more information.)
There's a Mirror on the Wall 